Israel expects that Arafat will get his plug pulled in a day or two

By Israel Insider staff and partners November 8, 2004

Israeli officials believe that the decision has been made to disconnect life support Tuesday or Wednesday, ynet reported, citing official sources. They are planning for a funeral in Gaza between Thursday and Saturday. Mahmound Abbas and Ahmed Qurei are heading for Paris to escort the corpse. Security officials are preparing for massive disturbance throughout the territories and in Israel's Arab sector.

ynet reports that a reliable Arab website (it didn't say which) reports that Suha Arafat has been told by doctors that her husband is 'already dead' and that there is no longer any point in keeping him alive. Apparently there has been a request by Palestinian officials to keep him hooked up to life support machines for another day or two to allow preparations to take place.

Debkafile reports that the French government is demanding Arafat's disconnection and removal forthwith. France has set the timetable as a death announcement by Tuesday evening, a memorial ceremony in Paris on Wednesday followed by departure for the Mideast -- Cairo or Amman. In the former case the burial is likely to be in Gaza, in the latter in Jericho.

Debka reports that Arafat's wife Suha will demand that Abbas and Qurei sign documents drafted by her French lawyers guaranteeing her a multimillion dollar inheritance and pension as the price for her switching off life support systems. Apparently Suha has not been successful in extracting from her brain-dead husband the access information for various bank accounts he controls.

Debka describes the behind the scenes bickering over the pretence of Arafat's allegedly reversible condition. 'Suhah Arafat sacked the PLO ambassador Leila Shahid, the Palestinian spokesperson who issued almost daily bulletins after Arafat arrived in Paris.'

At that point, the French apparently decided that enough was enough, Debka reported: 'What happened next was that Christian Estripeau, spokesman of the French military health services, informed Mrs. Arafat that he would issue no more bulletins on Arafat?s condition; neither would Percy hospital. She was given to understand that the hospital had kept her husband artificially alive as long as it intended to. The conversation followed a decision by a top-level conference of French officials, attended also by the president, to disengage from the pretence that Arafat was still alive. They realized it was no longer tenable without compromising the military hospital?s ethical position and medical credibility.' "

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Islamic Children's website shows decapitated head of female suicide bomber

This is the head of the suicide bomber who blew up two Israeli policemen in Jerusalem (real heroes who stopped a much worse attack), who was the hostess of a children's TV show. -EoZ

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HRW: Child suicide attacks 'must stop'

An international human rights group has called on Palestinian militants to stop using children in suicide bombings and military attacks.

Human Rights Watch made the call after a 16-year-old bomber blew himself up in a Tel Aviv marketplace on Monday, killing three Israeli civilians.

The New York-based group claimed at least 10 bombers aged under 18 have attacked Israel in the past four years.

The group behind Monday's attack has said it does not recruit children.

'Any attack on civilians is prohibited by international law, but using children for suicide attacks is particularly egregious,' said Jo Becker, advocacy director for children's rights at Human Rights Watch.

'Palestinian armed groups must clearly and publicly condemn all use of children under the age of 18 for military activities, and make sure these policies are carried out.'

A senior member of the political wing of the group behind the Tel Aviv attack, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, admitted to the BBC the group had made a mistake by recruiting 16-year-old Amer al-Fahr.

The organisation was looking at improving checks on applicants' ages, he added. (How any news organization, even the BBC, can write this sentence with a straight face is beyond me. - EoZ)

The other main Palestinian armed groups have also publicly disavowed the use of children in suicide attacks.

Yet the Human Rights Watch report claimed that the three most active militant groups - Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade - have all despatched under-age bombers during the four-year-old conflict with Israel.

The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade has been accused of sending four child bombers into Israel.

Three attacks by 17-year-olds were linked to Islamic Jihad, Human Rights Watch said.

Hamas and the PFLP have been linked to two attacks each, the group added.

Some senior militant figures have said they consider children of 16 as adults, the organisation said.

TEENAGE SUICIDE BOMBERS
Jan 2002: Safwat Rahman, 17
Mar 2002: Ayat al-Akhras, 17
May 2002: Issa Badir, 17
Jun 2002: Hamza Samudi, 17
Mar 2003: Sabih al-Saoud, 16
Aug 2003: Islam Qteishat, 17
Aug 2003: Khamais Gerwan, 17
January 2004: Iyad al-Masri, 17
Source: Human Rights Watch

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Arab News Op-Ed on Bush

Taheri is a good writer and I am pleasantly surprised that the Saudi Arab News published this. - EoZ
W2: But Who Is He?
Amir Taheri, Arab News

JEDDAH, 4 November 2004 — With President George W. Bush re-elected for a second term, the Middle East and the Muslim world beyond would do well to take a second look at the man who would lead the American “superpower” for four more years.

Who is George W. Bush? Is he a bumbling, low IQ rich kid, playing dummy for sinister ventriloquists? Or is he the populist demagogue in blue shirtsleeves out to sell the gullible Americans a bill of good?

If he is any of those things one must wonder how he has succeeded in persuading more than 50 million Americans to vote for him for a second time.

Is it not possible that he may be a traditional conviction politician of the kind that became endangered species after the cultural revolutions of the 1960s?

The first thing that we need to note is that Bush returns in a stronger position. He becomes the first candidate since 1988 to win the US presidency with a majority of the popular vote. He is also the fourth American president in more than half a century to win a second term. Also, he is the first US president since 1901 to enter a second term with his party in control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. He has won more votes than any president in all American history in an election that also saw the largest voters’ turnout ever in the US. This point merits attention because some people outside the US had assumed that Bush, having “stolen” the 2000 election, did not represent the American people.

Such assumptions enabled many people to present themselves as “anti-Bush” rather than plain anti-American. Now, however, it would not be easy to disguise anti-Americanism as anti-Bushism.

The second point to understand about Bush is that he is the first US president for half a century to be prepared to use American power, including military force, in a decisive way and, when necessary, regardless of what the global glitterati and the “international community” might think. The fact that he is able to do so is due to the 9/11 events that changed America forever.

Bush’s victory underlines another often overlooked fact.

The United States, far from being the hedonistic liberal society represented by Hollywood elite, is, in fact, a conservative traditional society. This enables Bush to assume a missionary posture that would be unthinkable in other democracies, especially in Europe.

Unlike European, and some American, politicians, who deal in shades of gray, Bush sees the world in black and white terms. When Bush says: You are either with us or against us, he really means it. He perceives of good and evil as physical realities, and not metaphysical abstractions, affecting the lives of both individuals and nations. French President Chirac likes to call Bush “a cowboy” while Japanese Premier Koizumi describes him as “Gary Cooper at High Noon”.

According to an old Arab saying a man is best known through his enemies rather than his friends. The logic of this is that a bad man might choose good friends. Well, here are some of Bush’s enemies: Mulla Omar, Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and, oh yes, the speculator George Soros.

Some world leaders have tried to understand George W. Bush based on what they know of his father’s tenure as president. The older Bush, however, was a classical style balance of power player raised on a fare of Cold War politics. To him the highest call of politics was to defend and perpetuate the status quo. The younger Bush, on the other hand, is a change-maker, as evidenced in his domestic and foreign policies.

Love him or hate him, W will be around for four more years. And, unlike in his first term in which he was dogged by memories of the 2000 dispute in Florida and cast by his foes as a usurper, he is now the undoubted leader of his people.

In the past four years some countries and leaders adopted a waiting-it-out policy in the hope that Dubya will not get a second term. That policy is no longer a realistic option.

The Palestinians cannot wait four more years in the hope that George W. Bush’s successor will, once again, unroll the red carpet for Yasser Arafat to the White House. If they want to talk to Washington they have to come up with a new leadership.

The mullas cannot afford to wait four more years in the hope that Bush’s successor would swallow a nuclear-armed regime in Iran. Syria cannot ignore the latest Security Council resolution on Lebanon for four more years. Iraq’s enemies cannot hope to fight for four more years to prevent stabilization and demcoratization.

While the world must accommodate and work with W2, it is also important that George W. Bush, too, should review its policies and, above all, style, in the second term. Dubya could repeat Ronald Reagan’s experience who, despised by many in his first term, ended up by winning virtually everyone’s admiration in his final four years at the White House.

W2 would need to modify the needlessly abrasive style of sections of his administration. It needs to ruffle fewer fathers when there is no need to do so. Having shown that he is capable of waging war in military terms he now needs to also show that he can make more effective use of diplomacy, both official and public, and the magnetic pull of American culture and values. More urgently, Bush needs to explain the United States’ involvement in Iraq more convincingly to his own people. Many enemies of Iraq and the US have built their strategy on the hope that rising doubts about the necessity, not to say legitimacy, of the war might sap public support for the president’s ambitious dreams for a new Middle East.

The American people have decided to give George W. Bush the rare privilege of a second term. There is no reason why the rest of the world should not also do so.

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More Palestinians Watching TV

Don't they look like they live in squalor, poor and desperate circumstances forcing them to have to blow themselves up? - EoZ
Wed Nov 3, 4:05 PM ET
Palestinian men look at US presidential candidates Republican George W. Bush (L) and Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) on TV in the West Bank city of Hebron.(AFP/Hazem Bader)

Now, these guys are in a Lebanese refugee camp, where they haven't fought Israelis for years. But they have to keep their guns with them at all times, just in case! -EoZ
Thu Oct 28, 8:40 PM ET
Palestinian fighters watch news on Arafat at their post in the Ain el-Helweh Refugee camp in southern Lebanon.(AFP/Mahmoud Zayat)

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Blair wants Bush to pressure Israel

British Prime Minister Tony Blair devoted much of a brief speech congratulating President George W. Bush on his reelection Wednesday night to a call for a new coordinated effort to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Describing the need for such a solution as the 'single most pressing political challenge in our world today,' Blair urged the president to seek peace 'between Israel and Palestine' with the 'same energy' that he has pursued his agenda in Iraq. Blair placed this quest in the context of 'resolving the conditions and causes on which the terrorists prey.'

Blair's dramatic emphasis on the issue, and his pledge to work with Bush to advance it, underlined the British prime minister's desire to be seen as seeking a dramatic Israeli-Palestinian breakthrough in order to pacify the vast contingent of critics, inside and outside his own Labor party, of his firm alliance with Bush over the Iraq war.

And as we all know, devoting energy to I/P means pressuring Israel to keep giving Palestinians whatever they are asking for. -EoZ

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Palestinians kicking back, watching the tube

See? They're just like us - only with assault rifles! - EoZ

Wed Nov 3,10:31 AM ET
Palestinian gunmen watch a television news report on the US presidential elections at the Ain el-Helweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon.(AFP/Mahmoud Zayat)

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Does Arafat have AIDS?

(Paris) As French doctors continue to run tests on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat some medical authorities not connected directly to his case are suggesting that he may have HIV/AIDS.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath Monday said that all types of cancer had been ruled out.

Arafat has been visibly ill for more than two weeks. Last Wednesday he collapsed and briefly lost consciousness. Initial blood tests performed in the West Bank revealed a low blood platelet count. The Palestinian leader was airlifted to France where he is undergoing more tests.

But, with leukemia and other forms of cancer ruled out, the list of possible diseases is narrowing.

A low blood platelet count is a sign of a weakened immune system. In addition to cancer, the low count could be attributed to bleeding ulcers, colitis, liver disease, lupus, or HIV. It is believed that ulcers and colitis have already been ruled out.

Arafat has lost a considerable amount of body weight. Hopital d'Instruction des Armees de Percy, southwest of Paris, also has some of France's best HIV/AIDS doctors.

For several years there have been suggestions that Arafat was bisexual.
Ion Pacepa, who was deputy chief of Romanian foreign intelligence under the Ceaucescu regime and who defected to the West in 1978, says in his memoirs that the Romania government bugged Arafat and had recordings of the Arab leader in orgies with his body guards.

If the suggestions that Arafat has AIDS are true, it is doubtful it would be made public.

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Israel to offer $10 million for Ron Arad info

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon confirmed on Sunday morning that the Israeli government has decided to allow the offer a US$10 million reward for significant information on the fate of air force navigator, Ron Arad, who was shot down over Lebanon 18 years ago, Channel 2 TV reported Saturday.

The Israeli government agreed to offer the reward owing to the urgings of a special committee devoted to locating the missing navigator.

The committee, which was established two years ago, has been pressing the matter since its conception, but security forces objected until now, saying that such an initiative would interfere with other efforts to obtain information regarding the fate of Arad, Israel Radio reported.

According to Army Radio, the reward money would be funded in part by the government and in part by private contributions.

The station said the offer would be published worldwide on December 1.

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Major terror attacks thwarted

The Shin Bet security services and the Israel Defense Forces said yesterday they have in recent weeks arrested 16 Bethlehem residents who are suspected of having planned a series of large-scale terror attacks in Jerusalem.
The cells are said to have planned to dispatch two pairs of suicide bombers to the Mea She'arim neighborhood in the capital, and to carry out a terror attack using an explosive-laden ambulance. Also attributed to one of the cells is a plan to attack a bus carrying worshipers to Rachel's Tomb near Bethlehem.

Based on details released by security forces yesterday, Hamas was meant to provide the suicide bombers for the missions, while Islamic Jihad was supposed to supply the explosive devices. Some of those arrested, including four teenage would-be suicide bombers, served in the Palestinian national security services. Among those arrested is Hamed Dar'awi, an active member in the PA's national security services, who is said to have been the planner of the ambulance attack.

The cells are said to have received instructions from Palestinian militant leaders in the Gaza Strip.

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Harvard prof: Palestinian suffering not Israel's fault

Harvard professor Ruth Wisse said on Friday that Israelis should not be blamed for the hardships of Palestinians in a talk that focused on a speech last week by pro-Palestinian activist and Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein. On-campus flyers advertising Epstein’s speech two weeks ago compared images of Jews in Nazi Germany to Palestinians at Israeli security check points.

The event was sponsored by Chabad at Stanford, in conjunction with the Jewish Law Students Association, Jewish Med Students Association, Jewish Business Association and Israel Peace Initiative.

“We felt a speech by Professor Wisse would be a constructive response to the events,” said Rabbi Dov Greenberg, director of Chabad at Stanford.

Greenberg told The Daily that Wisse’s talk was not intended to directly refute Epstein’s, although in a press release about Wisse’s talk Greenberg said that “students are clearly outraged about Hedy Epstein’s remarks.”

While her audience ate Challah bread and drank champagne for the Kiddush, Wisse discussed the origins and effects of anti-Semitism. Her most pointed remarks related to the current political situation between Israel and the Palestinians.

“Of course the Palestinian people suffer — it is genuine, it is undeniable, they can’t advance; the Jews would love to cure that suffering, but it is not a problem that the Jews created, and it is not a problem that the Jews can solve,” she said. “The Jews want to do anything to accommodate at any price, but this will not solve the problem. We can not afford to do this, it does not help.”

One student asked Wisse about the extent of Israel’s mistakes in its treatment of Palestinians.

“Could we do it better? Of course, but the one thing we cannot bear is one who believes that we are responsible for the suffering of the Palestinians,” Wisse said. “People who believe this are lying, and that lie is disastrous for both Jews and Palestinians.”

Wisse placed blame instead on the Arab world and on Palestinian politics.

“Why have the Palestinians insisted on keeping refugees?” she asked. “The greatest scandal is that the Palestinians have allowed their people to remain refugees. This is not a creation of Israel, it is a creation of Arab rulers.”

Wisse said the Arab world continuously launches attacks against the Jews, who remain silent and want to be accepted. She said this attempt to “be nice” has led many Jews to willingly accept responsibility for the Palestinian suffering.

“Anyone who takes responsibility for something that they neither did nor can correct is adding to the sum of the evil. The Arab rulers are responsible for the Palestinian conflict and they have to resolve this problem.”

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The victims of the Tel Aviv bombing

The victims were identified as Shmuel Levy, 65, of Jaffa; Leah Levine, 64, of Givatayim; and Tatiana Ackerman, 32, of Tel Aviv. Shmuel Levy was laid to rest at 1 p.m. in the Yarkon cemetery. Leah Levine was buried at 2 p.m. in the Yarkon cemetery.

Fourteen of the wounded remain in Tel Aviv's Ichilov Hospital, six of them with serious injuries and the rest with moderate-to-light wounds, a hospital spokeswoman said.

In the Wolfson Hospital in Holon five people remain hospitalized with only one in moderate condition. The remaining four suffered light injuries.

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